First day of 3 programs Beyond, Preparing and CTC DONE!
Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:58 pm
Can I just say what a blast! We had fun, I had fun! 
Total time Beyond, Preparing, CTC 5 hours, including lunch! I will say though that we did rotated lunch so none of us were off at the same time in groups. But we all got breaks, we all got lunch. But I rotated the breaks and lunch so that by CTC and Preparing kids ate together, Beyond kids ate together and I got my own sanity lunch alone. 
That is with all our LA (and we do different LA that is really one of the more time consuming and labor intensive for my older kids plus we do HOD dictation or spelling for one), Math (I use a different math for my older kids and we have 5 levels of math total), an extra science program for my oldest and there are a couple of here and there stuff I do that are just small extras. With our added Bible reading that we do chronologically from the Bible time it brings us to 5 1/2 hours. So if we start at 9 we are done by 2:00 for the program but add an extra 30 minutes for the extra Bible we do we will be done by 2:30.I checked all their work as we went. I spot checked math now only have to see if the corrections were made correctly. Plus I answered the many questions on do I suppose God... from my CTC kid that she had just floating around in her head after all her independent work. And let me tell you there were some wild ones. She really got to thinking about how did it all happen and she just absolutely loved CTC. I am thinking that is amazing! I am completely blown away. HOD rocks!
Things I think we did that helped to have a very good first day. (if you do not care then just skip this and be happy for us we had a great first day )
1. I made a schedule from what I saw others do but I kept a reality check. First thing that was off is I thought I could start at 8:00. Why? I never have before? Nope we started at 9 like always. I need a clean house chores done before we tear it up again. I am who I am lesson learned. 
I took down the times and made quick notes of what we did as far as boxes within that time byt time of day and order so I can now make a real working schedule tonight. But the first one helped to make sure I caught it all.
2. I um, read the manual, meaning the directions and intro. And I mean ahead of time not on the spot.
That is not a given with me.
3. I made a check list for each child except my two in Beyond because they are not ready for this. It had three parts. A box that had a place to grade themselves on performance and behavior, a list of all the possible stuff we do in a day and a place to check off what was actually done, then underneath bullet points of expectations I have for them individually for the year and they had to check them off that they read it. At the end of the day they turned it in.
4. This one I think is huge. I made them a binder with cool dividers for each subject (some things I comb bound separately) for each child special for them. And I started the day with the unveiling of the cool binder that gave them a taste of all the cool stuff we will do this year. In short I threw a sales pitch for the year for each program and got them hyped up about how great it was going to be. In that binder there was the attitude checklist and performance evaluation that I explained. So they saw that first. Two expectations planted in their head, one fun, and two excellence and good behavior. My kids do pretty well but we have our issues like every family. The sales pitch helps make for a nice first day.
5. I spent our break working on all the character issues and attitude adjustments I knew were issues last year or just in general. So I essentially trouble shot any of the bad heart issues before we got to day one. And two of my kids really got the work over, let me tell ya. It worked. I also rearranges things a bit so some of the walking over each other if one was slower with my dd with learning issues and my ds who is task master so the two will never collide.
Anyway I hope there is something for someone else here but if not then just Yeah Raw great first day with three programs! We love HOD!
Total time Beyond, Preparing, CTC 5 hours, including lunch! I will say though that we did rotated lunch so none of us were off at the same time in groups. But we all got breaks, we all got lunch. But I rotated the breaks and lunch so that by CTC and Preparing kids ate together, Beyond kids ate together and I got my own sanity lunch alone. That is with all our LA (and we do different LA that is really one of the more time consuming and labor intensive for my older kids plus we do HOD dictation or spelling for one), Math (I use a different math for my older kids and we have 5 levels of math total), an extra science program for my oldest and there are a couple of here and there stuff I do that are just small extras. With our added Bible reading that we do chronologically from the Bible time it brings us to 5 1/2 hours. So if we start at 9 we are done by 2:00 for the program but add an extra 30 minutes for the extra Bible we do we will be done by 2:30.I checked all their work as we went. I spot checked math now only have to see if the corrections were made correctly. Plus I answered the many questions on do I suppose God... from my CTC kid that she had just floating around in her head after all her independent work. And let me tell you there were some wild ones. She really got to thinking about how did it all happen and she just absolutely loved CTC. I am thinking that is amazing! I am completely blown away. HOD rocks! Things I think we did that helped to have a very good first day. (if you do not care then just skip this and be happy for us we had a great first day
)1. I made a schedule from what I saw others do but I kept a reality check. First thing that was off is I thought I could start at 8:00. Why? I never have before? Nope we started at 9 like always. I need a clean house chores done before we tear it up again.
I am who I am lesson learned. I took down the times and made quick notes of what we did as far as boxes within that time byt time of day and order so I can now make a real working schedule tonight. But the first one helped to make sure I caught it all. 2. I um, read the manual, meaning the directions and intro. And I mean ahead of time not on the spot.
That is not a given with me. 3. I made a check list for each child except my two in Beyond because they are not ready for this. It had three parts. A box that had a place to grade themselves on performance and behavior, a list of all the possible stuff we do in a day and a place to check off what was actually done, then underneath bullet points of expectations I have for them individually for the year and they had to check them off that they read it. At the end of the day they turned it in.
4. This one I think is huge. I made them a binder with cool dividers for each subject (some things I comb bound separately) for each child special for them. And I started the day with the unveiling of the cool binder that gave them a taste of all the cool stuff we will do this year. In short I threw a sales pitch for the year for each program and got them hyped up about how great it was going to be. In that binder there was the attitude checklist and performance evaluation that I explained. So they saw that first. Two expectations planted in their head, one fun, and two excellence and good behavior. My kids do pretty well but we have our issues like every family.
The sales pitch helps make for a nice first day.5. I spent our break working on all the character issues and attitude adjustments I knew were issues last year or just in general. So I essentially trouble shot any of the bad heart issues before we got to day one. And two of my kids really got the work over, let me tell ya. It worked. I also rearranges things a bit so some of the walking over each other if one was slower with my dd with learning issues and my ds who is task master so the two will never collide.
Anyway I hope there is something for someone else here but if not then just Yeah Raw great first day with three programs! We love HOD!
Give your sweeties a big HOD hug - I'm so proud of them and you too!